EXCLUSIVE: John Krokidas, who made his feature directing debut with the Beat Generation poets mystery Kill Your Darlings at Sundance, has signed a pair of deals that will put him to work on the Fox lot. Krokidas has been set to helm Standard Loneliness Package, which Keith Bunin is scripting based the title short story from the Charles Yu collection Sorry Please Thank You. Temple Hill Entertainment’s Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen will produce. Pic is set in the near future, where a recent college graduate gets an entry-level job at a tech company where he’s paid to experience painful events in other people’s lives. He falls desperately in love with his boss, and tries to build a genuine relationship in a society that’s becoming entirely virtual and where he essentially serves as a human pain cushion.

Krokidas has separately made a deal with Fox 2000 to team with his Kill Your Darlings writing partner Austin Bunn to rewrite Highrise, which the studio acquired as a spec script by Peter Dowling (Flight Plan). It is best described as a lush 21st century thriller inspired by the 1960s classic The Collector. Jon Shestak is producing. Krokidas just helmed two episodes of the new ABC series The Black Box, which stars Kelly Reilly and Vanessa Redgrave. UTA, Circle of Confusion, and attorney Andrew Hurwitz rep Krokidas.